P: Revert UI to older Camera Raw UI (12.2.1) after Interface Changes

During my Raw Photography trainings, people are surprised why I will cover Bridge, Camera Raw, and then Lightroom. “You"ll see...” I tell them. 

1. When I have finished a day of shooting, I copy first all the photos in a folder on the Desktop. 
2. Then I make a first selection in Bridge with stars and labels. Why I need to add hundreds of files in Lightroom's database if it is to remove 90% at the end?
3. Then I edit all my photos in Camera Raw, simply because the UI is faster.
4. Sometimes I do a roundtrip in Photoshop.
5. Then, when I have finished developing, I apply metadata. 
6. Finally, I add everything in Lightroom just for the archive. 

This is the moment where I show them how to develop in Lightroom.

After a few exercices, I ask them:
— “Where do you prefer to develop? In Camera Raw or in Lightroom?”
— My attendees say “Camera RAW”.
— Me: “Why?” 
— Attendees: “More efficient, easier UI.”

We are talking here about the tabbed horizontal set of features organized by categories. 

There you go Adobe. 

Did you see my post about bugs with the Local Adjustment tool and Wacom tablets?

UPDATE on my last reply: Although things seemed "back to normal" the illusion vanished after a system reboot, which has left me with Bridge failing to display thumbnails. So, I have once again installed 12.3 to simply regain some usability (albeit with an infinitely crippled workflow). Any suggestions on which prior versions of Bridge and ACR work and play well together would be appreciated. 😞

I am not opposed to changes, if the changes maintain similar, or brings better, ease of operation and workflow efficiency, and ideally more functionality.

I don’t inherently dislike the change to collapsing side panels from previous tabbed panels, but perhaps some hybrid where the tiny vertical side toolbar is moved to above the panels, similar to where the icon tabs were located in the previous version, under the Histogram, thereby minimizing the distance traveled to reach tools, and still using the muscle memory of going to that area to select tools/panels?

And then of course, fix all the other bugs & quibbles raised in this thread ;).

branislavmilic this is clearly a business decision by Adobe to change the UI than better design as you have clearly demonstrated. This new UI design causes the user to make 5 times as many actions to get the same things done. If you are working several thousand images in a day can amount to tens of thousands of extra clicks mousing and scrolling.

Having to roll back to previous versions has been a disaster. It's as if the old versions for download were poorly coded beta versions not meant for the public.

Here are ACR 12.3 and ACR 12.2.1



The compact and efficient icon tab bar is now replaced by a word based menu scroll bar system which takes up the entire window. This is being pushed as a modern interface that gives the user more flexibility. Just checking all the settings before was a mouse click mouse click mouse click... that has now become mouse click mouse  scroll mouse click - mouse click mouse scroll mouse click - mouse click mouse scroll mouse click etc.

Here’s why the UI of the latest version of #CameraRaw is a mess. There is a confusion as some sliders are similar and there is no clear separation between group of features.


Also, instead of keeping all tools that were previously directly available on the toolbar, now some are hidden in sub panels, forcing the user to click more to access them.



You tell me to reinstall v12.2.1 to use the previous version of the UI. But Camera Raw 12.2.1 does not load anymore in Bridge 2020 v10.1 even if I restart my Mac. But it loads in Bridge CC2018.

Here’s #CameraRaw 12.2.1 in Bridge CC2018 where ALL the primary tools can be selected straight away. And no, it is not an issue if they’re in the upper left corner, they’re even closer to the image. Putting them in the upper right corner is a mistake.



And when I start to edit photos, I usually go to 3 places: Lens, Details, Basic settings. 1 click, 2nd click, 3rd click. With the new UI, I need to scroll and find the set of features as they are not clearly separated.
Bad UI, bad UX, bad decision.

Something that Adobe forget to address amidst the "great" redesign is scaling. ACR has always been and unfortunately still is completely unusable when Windows scaling is set to 150%. ACR windows get so big that it does not fit the screen. 

Jerry, although counter-intuitive, consider "updating" Bridge to the latest version now that you've rolled ACR back.
I initially updated Bridge, PS, LR and ACR to latest versions, then decided ACR 12.3 wasn't to my liking (don't get me started).  So I rolled back ACR to 12.2.1 (using the links provided in this forum).  But then Bridge was not showing thumbnails and "Open in Camera RAW" was disabled.  I then rebooted, reverted Bridge back to a previous version and it all worked again. I also use Sony ARW files.  I am still on the previous version of Bridge, but my feeling is it will still work if I update to the latest.

One thing I don't like about ACR 12.3 is, apart from the unintuitive way cropping now works, is that you are forced to use sidecar XMP files. There is no longer an option to store photo adjustments in the Camera RAW database.

More observations:

When I have several images “open” in ACR, if I zoom into one, then go to the next, it is also zoomed in. Previously, each image was independent of the others. This behavior would make sense if all images were selected, but they are not.

Also, if I move the image with the hand tool halfway out of view, and go to the next image, it also has moved. I am not clear why I would need to move an image out of view, when not zoomed in at all? I find that that window is very sensitive to movements of my mouse, so I am constantly having to chase after images, and re-centering them by using Command + 0 (on a Mac). I wish I could deactivate that “slippery” functionality- would much rather have an image viewed at Fit in view, well...fitting in my view.

Command + Option + P seems to no longer work to let me see changes to the image using just the current open panel. In previous version, I had disabled Q function, opting for ability to toggle before/after for just that panel, but now having Q unchecked does not give previous C + O + P function. P still works, and shows before/after for all panels at once.

 I am not clear on what I am supposed to do with the \ key, to Toggle to default setting? It doesn’t seem to toggle completely to default, which I take to mean how image was imported using my default preset. It keeps many of those settings, but not for instance, the lens correction. If I use More image settings to select Reset to default, it shows how image was with import preset applied, before I made any additional changes, including lens profile applied. So each “Default” is a slightly different group of settings for an image.

To me default is the settings I saved as the standard preset to use on images imported from a specific camera, which includes lens correction.

And please bring back the Esc key to dismiss changes to ACR window, as now I have to do Shift + Esc, which is extra keys/work. Also, could we have a way use keyboard to save changes (Done) without opening the images into Photoshop (which happens if I hit Enter)? How about Shift or Option + Enter?

Jerry one solution albeit one you may not want to hear is try converting the CR2 and AWR files to DNG. This may get past them not opening in earlier versions of ACR 12.3. Second have a test back up system software so you don't end up pouching your main setup. One I just thought of is try rolling back Photoshop to the previous version along with Bridge and ACR.

One thing I noticed rolling back ACR to 12.2.1 now when I double click a file in the latest version Bridge  ACR only opens by launching the latest version of Photoshop I have installed. Before these updates ACR worked independently of Photoshop i.e. Photoshop didn't need to be open to use ACR.

This wasn't just an update to ACR this was definitely a complete redesign philosophy of the UI. One that is less productive and counter intuitive. The old UI you could simply check every setting by scroll click scroll click scroll click along the icon tabs. That has now become scroll click scroll scroll task bar scroll click scroll scroll task bar scroll click scroll scroll task bar scroll click with not just adding more scrolling but the scrolling is much greater distances.

Several things are at play here as this is a business decision by Adobe because it certainly hasn't anything to do with better UI design.